Abstract

Hvar is a typical Mediterranean town overwhelmingly influenced by tourism. Its tourist past is particularly long and exhilarating: from the country manor tourism of antiquity, the pilgrimages of the medieval period, the summer residences of the Renaissance and Baroque period, the scientific tourism of the nineteenth century, the health tourism of the second part of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, the summer and recreational tourism of the 1920s and 1930s, the trade union tourism of the 1950s, the mass summer tourism of the 1970s and 1980s and contemporary party tourism. The year 1868 is particularly important for Hvar, Croatia, and for European tourism in general. In that year, the Hvar Curative Health Society was established as the first tourist association in this region, marking the beginning of professional and organised tourist activity, which over the following 150 years completely changed the economic and social life of the town and island of Hvar. This article provides a short, focused survey of the development of tourism in the town of Hvar from ancient times to the present. In conclusion, I review some of the positive and negative effects of tourism and its influences on the economic and social life in present-day Hvar.